If you're a fan of the Kissing Booth franchise, you're probably on Team Elle.
How can you not be?
She's sweet, she's smart, she's sassy - and she also happens to be dating bad boy Noah,
who may or may not be involved with a girl named Chloe.
In The Kissing Booth 2, Elle and Noah are trying to make a long-distance relationship
work while Elle decides whether to attend college close to home with her bestie or move
cross-country to be with Noah.
Of course, complicating things are Marco, a guy who's spending time with Elle back home,
and the aforementioned Chloe, a girl who's cozying up to Noah at Harvard.
Mix all of these things together and you have a recipe for potential disaster.
"Awesome…"
With her alluring British accent and drop-dead good looks, Chloe probably made you sit up
and take notice when she entered the picture.
Chances are you've seen the actor who plays her before... but where?
Here's why Chloe from The Kissing Booth 2 looks so familiar.
With just two film shorts and some college theater under her belt, Maisie Richardson-Sellers
landed a starring role on the hit CW series The Originals, which was a spinoff of the
wildly popular Vampire Diaries.
It was a huge foot in the door for the then-unknown actor, who just a year earlier had graduated
from England's prestigious University of Oxford with a degree in archeology and anthropology.
Richardson-Sellers played the powerful witch Eva Sinclair, by way of possession by original
vampire Rebekah Mikaelson, on 15 episodes of The Originals.
Rebekah started out as a character played by Claire Holt on The Vampire Diaries before
jumping over to the show about the Mikaelson clan, where Richardson-Sellers played both
Rebekah and Eva depending on who had control of her body.
Eventually Richardson-Sellers moved on from The Originals.
But her time on the show proved to be pivotal for her, and her career quickly took off after
she appeared on the series.
Around the same time Maisie Richardson-Sellers first appeared on The Originals, she was cast
in 2015's blockbuster Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the first installment of the third
trilogy of the main Star Wars franchise.
Although most of her role was cut from the final version of the film, Richardson-Sellers
does appear on screen for a few brief, memorable moments.
Her big scene which only lasts a few seconds comes when the First Order's Starkiller Base
destroys the planet of Hosnian Prime.
Richardson-Sellers can be seen looking up into the sky in horror as a deadly red beam
of light comes raining down from the sky.
A year after Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Maisie Richardson-Sellers starred in DC's
Legends of Tomorrow, which is part of the CW's hugely popular Arrowverse franchise.
She started off her four-season run as the hero named Amaya Jiwe, also known as Vixen,
and later played a woman named Charlie, whose true name was later revealed to be Clotho
although, as a shapeshifter, she remained in Amaya's body.
Yes...it's a little confusing.
Amaya, a member of the Justice Society of America, joined the time-traveling Legends
after the death of her former teammate and lover Rex Tyler.
As Vixen, Amaya's superpower is that she can magically mimic the abilities of any animal
she wants with the help of a fox-shaped talisman that she wears around her neck.
While Vixen appeared in DC Comics, her alter ego of Amaya was created specifically for
the show.
At the end of season 3, Amaya decides to return to her home village of Zambesi in the 1940s
but the show decided to keep Richardson-Sellers as part of the cast.
This time around she played Charlie, a.k.a. Clotho, an ancient Greek deity who has the
ability to shape-shift.
And she shape-shifts right into Amaya's body.
But after two seasons, that storyline also ended for Richardson-Sellers, when Charlie
decided to go back to the 1980s to set down some roots.
This time, the actress actually left the show.
But that doesn't mean she won't possibly return in the future, especially since both of her
characters are alive and well in other decades.
So what motivated Richardson-Sellers to leave Legends of Tomorrow?
According to a July 2020 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, it was to give her the
freedom to focus on expanding her career: In 2020, Richardson-Sellers announced the
launch of her new production company, Barefaced Productions, which will focus on telling the
stories of LGBTQAI+ and people of color.
She explained in the interview:
"I have left the show as a series regular, which was a really tough but positive decision
that I made because I really want to pour more energy and time into Barefaced Productions
and getting projects off the ground, and I just couldn’t do that with the [Legends]
shooting schedule."
Richardson-Sellers even directed and co-wrote her first short film, Sunday's Child, which
follows an isolated young queer woman looking to find a way towards self-acceptance.
She also took some time to explain the origins of her production company's name, saying,
"My mum is from Guyana and my gran is Guyanese, and we are extremely, extremely close.
In Guyana, 'barefaced' is a phrase we use to describe someone who is challenging the
norm, being a bit cheeky, being out there, being controversial.
It's an affectionate slang word."
And with that, Richardson-Sellers moved on to starring in The Kissing Booth 2 which definitely
won't be the last time you see her.
In fact, just days after the Kissing Booth sequel premiered, the world got a sneak peak
at the third installment of the franchise, The Kissing Booth 3, in which Richardson-Sellers
will reprise her role as Chloe.
Look for that to release in 2021.
From playing witches, to shapeshifting, time traveling superheroes, it seems like there's
nothing Richardson-Sellers can't do.
Thanks for watching.
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